Tracey Kershaw
50 things my son doesn't need me for ...
Photography
2015
Tracey Kershaw is a visual artist whose maternal experience is central to her practice. Born in Wales, she currently lives and works in Nottingham. In 2011, Tracey graduated from the University of Nottingham with a first class BA (Hons) in Fine Art.
Her work is partly autobiographical, whilst reflecting on common experience. Working with photography, video, installation, sound and text, she explores issues of impermanence, fertility, ageing and the fragility of both time and relationships. Kershaw incorporates collaborative and participatory elements into her art; collecting, gathering and sourcing data from life, others and the world around her.
For her work ’50 things my son doesn’t need me for…..’, she made a list of everyday tasks and mundane details; things that build up an overall picture of the changing relationship between her and her son, and in particular issues of loss from a mother’s perspective.
These unremarkable maternal experiences provide rich memories, documenting ephemeral changes, and through which she aims to communicate a true and insightful sense of their relationship. These ordinary and easily over-looked moments of daily life, brushing his hair, collecting fallen peas from his plate or cutting his nails, which speak of a particular time, articulate something more extraordinary and momentous, and represent the more fundamental changes that will inevitably occur as he grows older.
Her work has gained national recognition, and she has exhibited widely, including a solo show ‘tell me about your mother…’ at Bromley House Library, Nottingham; ‘Modern Madonnas’ at St George’s Arts, Surrey; ‘Up the Wall’ at the Crypt Gallery, London; and ‘The Egg, The Womb, The Head and The Moon’ at Artsmill Gallery, Hebden Bridge. Most recently, Kershaw has both exhibited in and co-curated an exhibition and series of accompanying participatory events, Artist as Mother as Artist, exploring the inseparable relationship between being an artist and a mother.
